bluegrass music<\/a>. I wanted to get closer to people who lived in the place where it originated \u2013 music has always been a big inspiration for me. While driving in the mountains with no particular destination in mind, I met a social worker who told me: \u201cWhatever you do, don\u2019t go to St Charles.\u201d She said something about it being too dangerous, which made me curious.<\/p>\nA social worker told me, \u2018Whatever you do, don\u2019t go to St Charles.\u2019 That made me curious<\/p>\n
At one time, St Charles in Virginia, was a booming town serving 10 coal mines. Now, all but one of the mines, Bonny Blue, has shut down, along with all the stores and bars. I stayed in a small motel and photographed everyone I encountered with my medium-format analogue camera, or knocked on people\u2019s doors asking if I could photograph them. One family I got to know well were the Taylors, particularly the three siblings Laken, Josh and Derrick, who at the time were something like 14, 15 and 16. I felt really comfortable around those kids and their parents. I spent Thanksgiving at their place, and Laken and I have stayed in contact ever since.<\/p>\n
Intimacy is important when I photograph people \u2013 I need that feeling of connection, and I try to be open and vulnerable. That means the people I photograph stay with me, and for 20 years the people of St Charles have been deeply rooted in my consciousness.<\/p>\n
I always imagined I\u2019d return sooner than I did, but stuff happened. I had children of my own and got caught up in other photo projects. But during the past three years, I\u2019ve visited St Charles several times, and this photograph was taken on one of those trips. The boy\u2019s name is Carter \u2013 he\u2019s Derrick\u2019s son, and I\u2019ve also got to know his mother, Makayla.<\/p>\n
A group of us would go walking up in the mountains looking for ginseng. I was very struck and inspired by how free the Taylor family\u2019s kids are. They would run around and look for snakes underneath stones. They\u2019re not afraid of them, even though rattlesnakes and copperheads live in that region. I don\u2019t think Carter\u2019s snake was a poisonous one \u2013 he just picked it up and carried it around. Derrick had taught him how to do that, although Carter was sad when he wasn\u2019t allowed to bring it home.<\/p>\n
One thing I see when I photograph in St Charles is people\u2019s love for the mountains, which are like their backbone. They\u2019re really bound to nature. I try to capture that, and to reveal the inner selves of people through finely tuned details. I think I also mirror myself when I photograph \u2013 by describing the lives of others, I tell something about my own life and longings.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve realised a lot of my projects circle around themes of social structures, time and memory. When I look at this picture of Carter, there is a sense of heritage because I can see his parents in him, and of course my first book includes photographs of his father when he was young. The picture is from a new series I\u2019m making, The Wild Horses at Bonny Blue. Last year, while staying with the Taylors, I went running and encountered a group of horses protected by a white stallion. When I tried to approach them, they ran away. Laken explained that someone in the town once released some horses that have multiplied and become a mountain herd, which come down when they need more food. With their strong bonds, those horses reminded me of the Taylor family \u2013 living wildly and simply, close to nature.<\/p>\n
Photograph: \u00a9 Henrik NielsenHannah Modigh\u2019s CV<\/p>\n
Born Stockholm, 1980
High point: \u201cHillbilly Heroin, Honey won the Swedish photo book of the year prize in 2010, which gave me validation to continue. Plus the Prix Pictet nomination for Hurricane Season, and accompanying exhibition<\/a> at the V&A in London this year\u201d
Top tip: \u201cCollaborate with people you have fun with and respect\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I visited the Appalachian mountains for the first time in my mid-20s, after deciding I needed to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-184968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}